Operation: CAVALRY
by M306117
Summary: With the arrival of the UNSC battlegroup, life in Equestria can finally start back on the path to normality but threats, new and old, threaten the precarious peace on the war torn planet.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

 **Spartan Jones** _ **,**_ **somewhere in the Equestrian countryside. 1428 Hours, May 01, 2553 (Military Calendar/Local Time)**

'I tally one, two, three, four, five and… six?'

'Seven. There's another Innie on top of the café looking building. I think he's some kind of overwatch.'

'Oh, yeah. Yeah, looks like he's got a rifle. So, seven Innies and- what was Doug's count?'

'Thirty Birdies, give or take.'

'Thirty Birdies. Call it an even forty in total, three to one in favour of the baddies?'

'Yeah, sounds reasonable enough. Town that small? Forty is more than you'd need.'

Jones nodded his head in affirmation of his assessment, lazily panning the scope of his rifle across the town once more to make doubly sure there wasn't anybody he'd missed. He hadn't so he took his eye from the scope and let it rest for a moment. Beside him, Erin kept her binoculars fixated on the small town a few kilometres from their current position.

The two of them, plus Doug who was keeping watch over their little encampment, were currently deep within enemy territory as part of a reconnaissance mission ahead of a reclamation campaign by the bulk of the UNSC's ground forces. It had been three days since a Pelican had dropped the three of them, plus an equal number of Mongooses, in a secluded part of the Equestrian countryside to learn all they could about the positions of the Insurrectionist forces currently laying claim to the land.

With almost five-hundred thousand square miles of land to occupy but only a limited amount of troops, the Innies could take control of just a select few locations, which meant the UNSC had to carefully appraise as many as they could to know where to send their equally limited troops.

To that end, the UNSC had deployed over a hundred of its best recon teams that knew how to cover a lot of ground in as short a time as possible without leaving a trail, plucking them from the Marines, ODSTs and Spartans, and inserting them all across Equestria to root out the Insurrection.

Jones, Erin and Doug belonged to the last group, the Spartans, having been selected to join the supersoldier program's latest iteration shortly after the Battle of Earth concluded in early December of last year. All three were former Army personnel, specifically its airborne division, with no less than four years combat experience under their belts, including the Fall of Reach which had been one of humanity's biggest losses throughout the entire war.

Certainly that conflict had left a deep impression on their parent formation, the 82nd Airborne Division which could trace its lineage all the way back to 1917, mauling the once 15,000 strong unit to maybe half that, whilst the Covenant's invasion of Earth had reduced that number by half again. Less than three-thousand paratroopers remained and that included replacements and mergers with even worse off groups, and it was out of those three-thousand battered and weary troops that an enigmatic individual known only as Jun had determined Jones, Erin and Doug to be ideal candidates for the Spartan-IV program.

Specifically, he was looking for recruits with an extensive background in airborne operations who also held exemplary combat records. Having lived through a living hell not once but twice in the span of five months, Jun believed them to be just what he wanted for his growing force of supersoldiers to be.

With barely a chance to say their goodbyes, the three paratroopers were whisked off to Mars for the augmentation procedures and then onto a space station located deep in the middle of nowhere for training, chafing under the brutal and sadistic Captain O'Day as she began breaking them down ahead of rebuilding them into something better than they were previously.

But, as there was never any rest for the wicked, Jones and his team, now calling themselves Falcon in homage to their parent regiment and decked out in the GEN2 Air Assault MJOLNIR armour, were amongst the hundred or so Spartan-IVs sent to Faustia to liberate the natives from an Insurrectionist occupation.

The deployment was so sudden that it interrupted their training, and while Jones desperately wanted to finish it he relished a chance to take a break from Captain O'Day's downright abusive treatment of them all, even if that meant jumping into combat.

As he lay in a small depression atop a hill, rifle tucked against his shoulder, it occurred to Jones neither he nor his team had actually gotten a chance to properly relax after the end of the Battle of Earth. There'd been the occasional day here and there where they did nothing, or had a reduced workload, but nothing of any significant downtime. This even included the weeks when doctors and scientists re-engineered his body to beyond the peak of human physical prowess. If he wasn't unconscious during surgeries then he was undergoing tests to make sure the augmentations were accepted. He hadn't even gotten any respite during the slipspace journey here because the Spartan-IV program had provided suitable materials to keep its budding troops occupied and up to date on their training.

Being here and observing the Equestrian town was actually the most peaceful it had been in several months. There was no hum from a ship's reactor, or the hustle and bustle of several hundred people crammed into a metal box a klick or so long, or the booming whump of explosions as genocidal aliens went to town on the place.

All Jones could really here was the whisper of wind, the call of far off birds, and nothing else. Equestria lacked the major development of most human colony worlds so there were no ten lane highways or maglev trains or ships flying high overhead to generate noise, and most of the ten million ponies who lived here had fled westward at the behest of SPARTAN-A196 and the rulers of the land, leaving massive tracts of land devoid of life. At least, sentient life.

Almost.

From his vantage point, Jones could see maybe two or three times as many ponies as there were Innies and griffins in town, meekly going about their business under the watchful and wary eyes of their invaders. Being occupied was as alien a concept to the Equestrians as their new overlords were, as was armed conflict on this scale judging by the briefing packet Jones had read before deploying.

The closest Equestria got to a standing army was a semi-ceremonial Royal Guard that mostly concerned itself with the goings on of the rulers, whilst the bulk of their defence rested squarely on the shoulders of six ponies who used friendship to defeat powerful beings and restore balance to the world. When he'd first read that, Jones could have sworn it was a misprint or typo and said as such to the briefing officer, but the ONI spook had simply confirmed the information before carrying on with more important things that would be of greater concern to the Spartans.

It took being invaded and the assistance of SPARTAN-A196 to marshal any kind of army intended for conducting offensive manoeuvres rather than reactive, defensive ones, but even then it had limited successes against the Innies and the griffins. The Equestrians lacked both the arms and armour to face off against such a numerically superior force, and the resolve to kill the enemy, which led to their first outing being their last.

Now all they had left was a smattering of both the Royal Guard and their army, totalling perhaps less than three-hundred souls all told, which was why they had so readily accepted the appearance of a UNSC battlegroup in high orbit and nearly two division's worth of troops. They might have been less pleased to know that both the ships and soldiers were hastily cobbled together from what remained of the Home Fleet after the Covenant tore through it.

Some ships still had whole sections of armour in need of replacement, or had a skeleton crew manning them, or were so fresh out of dry dock that more than half the furnishings inside had yet to be installed. Similarly, the Marine and ODST units were mergers of larger formations mauled by the Covenant or consisted of troops fresh from boot camp. A lot of the UNSC's time here on Faustia would be spent continuing the work that had gotten interrupted by the Equestrian's call for help.

It was strange how much effort HIGHCOM was putting into saving the inhabitants of a planet they hadn't known about until three or four months ago, doubly so given the disorganised state of the UNSC's forces at the time and the other, more pressing matters to attend. Part of Jones wondered if some of the reasoning was to use Equestria as a testing ground for some of their new toys, particularly the newly minted Spartan-IVs given almost two-thirds of their number were here rather than elsewhere. The recon teams were certainly getting put through the ringer because they had twice as many towns to look over than their Marine and ODST counterparts in the same amount of time. Since getting dropped off, Fireteam Falcon had cast their gaze over no less than seven towns in three days whilst getting no more than two hours sleep a day.

A mixture of coffee, stimulants, professionalism and their augmented physiques was just about the only thing keeping the three Spartans from dropping where they stood, and a quick check of their mission objectives told Jones that wasn't about to change any time soon.

'Kinda weird how passive they're being about being occupied,' Erin said. 'I mean, if this was us or the Elites, and definitely the Brutes, there'd be rioting in the streets almost constantly.'

'There has to be some kind of balance,' Jones said, returning to his scope. 'You've got so many proud warrior races in the galaxy that there _needs_ to be a proud pacifist race to counter them. I mean, seriously. _Friendship_ is their primary means of fighting off bad guys?'

'Technically speaking, Joe, but don't we use friendship to do the exact same thing?' Erin said. 'Teamwork and unit cohesion only work if you like the guy you're standing next to, and that's basically another form of friendship. Right?'

'I guess,' Jones said. 'But our kind of friendship doesn't make- what did the packet say? Some kind of rainbow?'

'Yeah,' Erin said. 'Yeah, a rainbow of energy that can purify someone, or turn them to stone, or banish them to the moon, or something else out of a little kid's cartoon.'

'Rainbows,' Jones snorted. 'Christ.'

He panned his scope around again in search of anything of note for the Marines that would soon be upon the town, but saw nothing of any major concern. If anything, he got the impression the Innies would soon be bugging out to leave the town alone. They kept huddling together and looking westward, pointing occasionally and up to the sky, as though expecting a massive mechanised UNSC formation to come roaring over the horizon straight for them or for a platoon of ODSTs to hot drop right into their midst.

It was to be expected since the force they'd sent to Vanhoover had gone silent a little less than a week ago after reporting the arrival of a massive UNSC fleet and army, plus dozens upon dozens of Spartans, so naturally they'd be worried about what was going on along Equestria's western coast. More than once some of them had made gestures pointing east to Baltimare, the Insurrection's main foothold in the country, as though suggesting they retreat there to perceived safety. Some of the smaller garrisons already had, leaving behind Equestrians who were bewildered at the sudden change in their circumstances. Might these troops abandon their posts too?

'How far to our next objective?' Jones asked.

'Uh, about seventy or eighty klicks,' Erin said. 'Command wants us there by 1900 hours.'

'And it's half past two now,' Jones murmured, pulling up a topographical map of Equestria the navy had been kind enough to create and distribute. He flagged their current position and where they needed to be next, and drew a line between them before scanning the terrain, wincing when he did.

The land they were in now was mostly made up of rolling hills, providing plenty of cover for the three of them on their Mongooses, but it soon petered out into a massive, oblong shaped plain that looked like it could have once been an inland sea or lake before the water levels dropped, stretching between the two towns almost perfectly with a hardpan road connecting them. At its widest, the plain measured more than thirty klicks across with hills and forests running along the edges

Given the road was flat and level and dry, Falcon could move between the two settlements in just under ninety minutes at top speed but at a cost of kicking up a massive plume of dust that could be seen beyond the visible horizon, and if there were Innies guarding the next town they might have sentries posted to keep an eye on the road for any potential hostiles using it. If they saw the dust then they'd shift to an alert state and get themselves ready for incoming hostiles, complicating Falcon's job.

They could skirt the edges but some quick calculations told Jones that distance was close to 250 kilometres and would take them over rougher terrain, hampering forward progress, and make them miss their arrival time, which was wholly unacceptable. If the higher ups wanted them in place no later than 1900 hours, they wanted them in place no later than 1900 hours. There was little to no leeway with them, especially when it came to Spartans. They accomplished the impossible, or as close to it as they could.

It was obvious the truncated timeframe was part of their assessment to see if they could hack it as Spartans, and perhaps more personally it was a test of Jones' quick thinking and problem solving skills whilst under pressure. He certainly felt it as he scanned over the map again. If they went one route, they risked being seen by the very people they were going to observe, and if they went the other they risked failing to adhere to their schedule and cast doubt on their perceived superiority, and there was no doubt in Jones' mind that piece of information would find its way back to Captain O'Day's ear.

He flinched upon imagining the immense dressing down she'd lay upon him and the rest of Fireteam Falcon, and endeavoured to find a solution to the problem before him. The town they were aiming for actually sat on the edge of the plain rather than within the hills behind it, so they'd have to circle around it to get a good observation point, but it also meant the Innies would have a clear view of anything coming towards them from across the flat land. Judging by the imagery, the tallest building in town was roughly four stories high and likely the best place for an observer to perch themselves, giving them a horizon of twelve kilometres.

With that in mind, Jones realised they could actually use the road for the first fifty or so klicks before needing to worry about anyone in town seeing them or their dust cloud. Once they were close enough, Falcon could then veer off the beaten path and go cross country to hug the edge of the plain where the terrain became hilly enough to keep them from being silhouetted against the horizon and the ground became grassy enough that they wouldn't kick up too much dust, if any.

His only worry, however brief, was that the Innies could have placed remote sensor beacons along the road that would send alerts to anyone listening that someone or something was barrelling down it towards them at high speeds. It was something the UNSC might have done if they were locking down a location but then, they had a bigger budget than the rebels to pay for such gizmos and the Innies would more than likely be expecting their adversaries to come at them from the air in fleets of Pelicans and Hornets, not a small ground recon team.

After all, the UNSC Navy ruled the skies now and could train the powerful optics of their warships down onto just about anything they wished to. It was a moot point to spend time and energy deploying an early warning system along a single stretch of road when the enemy could look down at them from the high heavens with impunity.

'Yeah, that'll work,' Jones muttered to himself, roughing out the various turning points and timings on his map before beaming a copy to Doug and Erin. 'It's got to work.'

His two teammates agreed and were quick to break camp when the allotted time came, collecting up all the rubbish they had generated and clearing away their tracks as best they could before mounting up and moving out.

 **Spartan Jones** _ **,**_ **somewhere in the Equestrian countryside. 1915 Hours, May 01, 2553 (Military Calendar/Local Time)**

They managed to get to their observation point with minutes to spare, stashing the Mongooses in a small hollow and draping camouflaged netting over them, and were quick to train their optics onto the town below. Like the one before it, their target was a typical Equestrian settlement with wattle and daub buildings that never rose above two stories barring the central government structure, which was closer to four stories, with the streets that ran between them made of well trodden dirt rather than stone or tarmac.

It too had an Insurrectionist presence in the form of humans wandering around with outdated and mismatched armour systems, and like their comrades in the previous town they too were anxious about recent developments. They couldn't help but glance west every few minutes or gaze skyward with dread on their faces, and their new disposition hadn't gone unnoticed by the townsfolk who would scurry past the armed humans and then, once they were out of sight and earshot, whisper amongst themselves with a fervour Jones had only ever seen in people getting ready to do something bold that went against common sense, and he mentioned as much to Doug.

'Yep,' he said. 'I think they're probably planning on some sort of uprising. Don't you?'

'Maybe,' Jones said with a shrug. 'Kinda goes against their whole philosophy though.'

'Maybe they're realising friendship isn't always magic,' Doug said. 'Besides, you can only push a person so far before they shove back. It's the same for us, innit?'

'Innit just,' Jones agreed, a wry smile on his face as Doug chuckled at his use of the other Spartan's colloquialism. 'The problem is, they just don't have the proper means of staging an uprising against the Innies, or the Birdies. Inspired revolutionaries or not, people without guns typical don't fare well against those that do.'

'Yeah,' Doug said in agreement. Then, after a brief pause, said, 'Why do we call them Birdies?'

'What?' Jones said.

'The griffins. Why do we call them Birdies? Shouldn't it be like with the Innies where we call them Griffies or something?'

'I don't know. I heard some guy call them Birdies and he probably heard it off some other guy, and so on and so forth. You know how it is.'

'Yeah,' Doug said. 'But why Birdie? Isn't that a golf term for a score one below par?'

'I think so,' Jones said with a shrug. 'I don't know. Maybe... Maybe the person who first coined it thought the griffins were only slightly above average or something. I mean, they _are_ playing second fiddle to the Innies.'

Doug dipped his head in agreement, but then came out with, 'Why not Eagles?'

'What do you mean, why not Eagles?' Jones asked.

'As a nickname,' Doug said. 'Griffins are part eagle, are they not? And eagle is a golf term for two below par, innit?'

'I...' Jones began. 'I don't know. Maybe the guy wasn't well versed in mythology or golfing, or he thought giving them the name Eagles put them in too much of a heroic light after what they've done, or he just laughed at a picture of them and said something like pretty birdie, and someone close to him just ran with it.'

'Hmm, maybe,' Doug said. 'Still, though. Birdies?'

Jones sighed in exasperation and let his head sag forward theatrically. One of Doug's perhaps less redeeming traits was his ability to lock onto a mostly trivial thought or custom and stay locked onto it, whirling it about inside his head as he tried to discern the secrets and motivations behind it and asking those around him for their thoughts on the matter. If he had nothing overly important to occupy his attention, like being in the thick of battle, or if he was running on minimal sleep, then it only amplified his need to talk about it out loud.

Being stuck on overwatch with Jones apparently didn't qualify as enough to occupy his mind, partly because the Innies and Birdies in town were just patrolling, and mostly because Jones was the one to have his scope glued to the town. Sometimes carrying a DMR and being the team leader brought with it powerful downsides.

'Birdies,' Jones repeated softly as he peered through his scope again. 'Birdies, Birdies, Birdies.'

'Yeah,' Doug said. 'Hey, that would make any griffins flying above us in a holding pattern circling birdies, wouldn't it?'

'Yep,' Jones said. 'That it would.'

They lapsed into silence after that, staring at the town with half lidded eyes caused by improper sleep, Jones with his rifle tucked against his shoulder and one eye on the scope, and Doug with his arms resting on the berm they were lying behind and his chin resting on those. He could have fallen asleep for all Jones knew, his facial expression completely hidden behind the mirrored visor of his helmet, but as absent minded as Doug could be he was still a professional and wouldn't fall asleep without getting some relief in place first.

'Anything interesting happening?' he asked several long minutes into the silence.

'Use your binoculars,' Jones said.

'They're all the way by my hip,' Doug said. 'That's too far to reach.'

'No it's not.'

'No it's not. But it means moving my arms and I've just gotten comfortable.'

'Use your binoculars, Doug.'

'I'm too comfortable, Joe.'

A soft sigh slipped past Jones' lips but they were still drawn into a faint smile at the back and forth he and Doug were having. As much as his team annoyed him sometimes, Doug with his left field questions and Erin with her tendency to get overly hyperactive once the adrenaline started pumping, there was nobody else Jones would rather be fighting side by side with. The bonds the three of them shared ran deep, forged from the heat and intensity of four years hard fighting against the Covenant, so much so that Jones didn't think of them as his friends so much as he thought of them as _family_ , which was in especially short supply following the deaths of his parents back on Reach.

He would die for them, and they would for him, and he couldn't help but wonder how their camaraderie stacked up against the kind of friendship Equestria called upon to defend it from threats. Or, at least it had done until three of the six ponies found themselves on the wrong end of a Pelican's weaponry.

Jones shook his head gently to clear the thought from his head and returned to the town, panning from one Innie soldier to another with the occasional twitch to a griffin to break up the monotony. Unlike their human compatriots, the half lion/half eagle creatures had a more uniform look about them with official looking armour made of pressed metal and ordained with a heraldic device that must have been the Griffin Kingdom's coat of arms. It looked like two griffins back to back, standing up on their hind legs and raising their talons against an unseen enemy, wings outstretched and tails entwined, as though perhaps extolling the griffins could only count on griffins when their backs were against the wall, or that even when cornered they didn't back down from a fight.

That was a sentiment Jones could easily get behind, full well believing that so long as he had the ability to stand and hold a weapon he wouldn't quit, regardless of the odds. The question on his mind now was if the griffins believed this themselves, as judging by the uncertain looks they sported they weren't looking forward to fighting the UNSC any more than the Insurrectionists did. Would they stand shoulder to shoulder against a company of Marines, dying to the last, or would they flee to live another day?

 _Won't know until we take the fight to them_ , Jones thought as he tracked a trio of griffins walking down a street, all three of them doing their best to appear haughty despite their fears and the glowering looks the Equestrians were giving them. Evidently their attempts were fooling nobody and the ponies of this town were beginning to develop a bold streak. Jones rechecked the numbers in his head at how successful a revolution might be for the ponies should they try anything, and came up short. The Innies might have been outnumbered more than three to one but they still had guns, and a willingness to kill, whilst all the Equestrians had was hope.

That was all well and good for starting rebellions but people needed arms and ammunition to carry it through to the end. Hopefully the Marines could get here before the Equestrians launched any such futile attempt, but Jones was too much of a pessimist to think they would. The sigh he let out wasn't one of amusement, it was one of exasperation and frustration at knowing these ponies could be lying dead in the streets by the time the UNSC swung by to save them.

'Hey, Joe?' Doug said.

'Yeah, Doug?' Jones said.

'You remember when we got sent to Shadow to train their militia?'

'Yes, Doug. I remember it.'

'And how they had that big party to send us off?'

'I remember most of that.'

'Why were some people juggling geese?'


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

 **Spartan Jones** _ **,**_ **somewhere in the Equestrian countryside. 0008 Hours, May 02, 2553 (Military Calendar/Local Time**

The phrase no rest for the wicked was one of several adages that popped into Jones' sluggishly responding mind when he awoke less than an hour after finally getting his head down for the first time in nearly thirty hours, roused from his slumber by the muted crack of a distant explosion that was strong enough to make the ground tremble ever so slightly. He forced his eyes open and sat bolt upright, one hand going for his DMR whilst the other helped push him to his feet.

He was operating more on reflex and training at this point, brain still spooling up to full speed, but by the time he slammed into position next to Doug and Erin at the small rise they were using as cover for their observation point he was awake as he was ever going to get. Adrenaline certainly helped wake a person up when they were flagging.

'Couldn't even get an hour,' Jones muttered, bringing his scope to bear on the Equestrian town that had sported a large column of smoke since he'd last looked at it. 'One freaking hour.'

'Sucks to be us,' Erin said.

'Sucks to be them more,' Doug said, nodding at the distant town and the growing fire. Already a faint orange glow could be seen around the smoke, illuminating it from below to create a hellish feel in an otherwise quaint locale. 'That looks like a residential section of town, Joe. There's going to be casualties.'

'I know,' Jones said with a slight grimace. 'Do we have any overheads from satellites so we can narrow down the point of detonation?'

'Already working on it,' Erin said as she pulled up the relevant files on her HUD. 'Just need to orientate the map and... yeah. Yeah, looks like the explosion came from the more upscale part of town.'

'Perfect,' Jones muttered under his breath.

Then came the faint, staccato crackle of rifle fire drifting across the land, a mixture of single shots, bursts and full auto blasts, all of which came from _human_ weapons which meant it was _Insurrection_ forces opening fire. Working out what they were firing on was easily figured out given who were their allies in town and who weren't, and factoring in the recent explosion it wasn't that hard to know why; the locals were staging an uprising.

Images of ponies lying dead in the street, gunned down by Insurrectionists, quickly flashed into Jones' mind even as he patched into SATCOM to hail the orbiting UNSC fleet, and in particular the destroyer that was being used as a command and control centre for the various ground forces as they swept across Equestria.

'Recon Team 034 to Thunder Child,' Jones radioed once a link was established. 'Recon Team 034 to Thunder Child. Urgent message, priority alpha.'

' _Thunder Child to Recon Team 034_ ,' came the neutral rely from a Marine lieutenant colonel aboard the UNSC _HG Wells_ , responsible for coordinating all one hundred or so reconnaissance teams the UNSC had deployed. ' _Authenticate. Golf-Niner-Foxtrot.'_

'Seven-Alpha-Zulu,' Jones replied.

' _Go, Falcon One.'_

'Thunder Child, we have rifle fire coming from an Equestrian settlement, map designation Echo-Seven, following an explosion of unknown origin within a suspected residential section of town. Strongly believing occupying forces are now engaging the civilian population in an attempt to quell an uprising.

'Request permission to move into town and lend assistance.'

There was a short pause as the lieutenant colonel mulled this information over, or just conferred with whatever junior staffers were nearby over whether the shift in the ROE was warranted. By and large, the recon teams were supposed to remain out of sight and report only, and to only open fire on the enemy if they were discovered by hostile forces or saw evidence of overtly hostile actions that constituted a direct loss of life towards friendlies.

It was a short discussion.

' _Permission granted, Falcon One. You are cleared hot to engage any and all Insurrectionist forces within your designated sector. Reinforcements can be on site within three hours of a request, though be advised; weather monitoring is tracking a large scale nor'easter moving in. Projections have it moving over your location inside of twenty-four hours, with winds strong enough to hamper Pelican operation and sufficient snowfall to hamper ground movements. Cannot guarantee quick reinforcements under these condition.'_

'Acknowledged, Thunder Child. Will assess and evaluate situation in town before making the call,' Jones said. 'Falcon One out.'

He ended the connection and directed Doug and Erin to mount their Mongooses in a rapid fashion which they did, discarding the camouflage netting and mounting the ATVs which came alive instantly, and the three Spartans roared away from their little camp towards the town with great plumes of dirt and dust flying up from beneath their wheels. Stealth was no longer a major concern of theirs.

Closing with and engaging the enemy was.

 **Spartan Jones** _ **,**_ **unnamed Equestrian town. 0024 Hours, May 02, 2553 (Military Calendar/Local Time**

Fireteam Falcon crossed the threshold of the town at a quick pace and made a beeline straight for the largest concentration of gunfire they could hear, throwing their Mongooses into tight corners and blasting through patches of smoke from growing fires with almost reckless abandon. Had the road been made of tarmac or asphalt it might have made the tyres squeal and screech at the abuse being heaped upon them, adding to the ghostly visage of three fast moving spectres, but the cries of the townspeople was screaming enough as they dashed to and fro, disorientated by the smoke and flames and gunfire, or just wailed in abject misery as they knelt by a limp form in the street.

Jones gave one such instance a fleeting glance as he sped by, a young foal shaking the bloodied corpse of a mare and screaming at her to wake up, and he felt his grasp on the Mongoose's handlebars tighten with rage as he hauled the controls around to bring them out into an open square, the source of most of the gunfire. He slammed to a dead stop, Doug and Erin pulling up alongside him, and they took in the scene.

There were maybe two dozen Innies and three times as many Birdies standing around an ad hoc stage cobbled together from wood and metal crates, those with firearms atop the elevated position and those without forming a cordon around it, keeping an amassed crowd of ponies away from them all. Occasionally the Innies would loose off several bursts from their guns in an attempt to disperse the crowd, only to fail, even when they fired mere feet from their heads. One of them even seemed to be shouting something at the Equestrians but it was lost beneath their chanting and jeering and screaming for the Innies to pay for what they had done.

As best as Jones could figure, the explosion that had roused him was also the last straw in what was without a doubt an oppressive occupation, and the enraged locals had chased all the Innies and Birdies they could find into this central area with the intention of lynching them, or whatever the Equestrian equivalent was, but now they were locked into a stalemate. The ponies wanted blood but were too fearful of the guns the humans wielded to make any kind of move on the stage, whilst the humans were too afraid of repercussions from the UNSC if they were to lay waste to an entire town of ponies.

 _Not that they were afraid to nuke Canterlot or bombard Ponyville_ , Jones thought darkly as they fired off more warning shots. Before too long, one side would gain the courage to override their fears and a bloodbath would follow. If the Equestrians acted, they'd be gunned down in pure self defence. If the Insurrectionists acted, they'd gun down the ponies in perceived self defence. Either way, it wasn't going to end well for the equines.

This meant giving the Innies something more important to focus on rather than the ponies, and looking around the square Jones quickly formed a plan.

'Doug, punch out fifteen metres along the southern edge and conceal yourself in a first floor room,' Jones ordered, dropping a waypoint roughly where he wanted the Spartan to be. 'Erin, circle around to the opposite side of the square and take up position on the second floor of a building that offers adequate sightlines of the stage, and both of you wait for my order to fire.'

'Fuckin' A,' Erin said, her voice louder than it should have been thanks to the adrenaline pumping through her system. She shifted her Mongoose into reverse and peeled away from the pack, navigating her way to the far side of the square where Jones wanted her as the remaining two Spartans dismounted and ran for their firing positions.

For Jones this was in the building he was directly next to, and on the very top floor which was the preferred location of choice for a marksman such as himself. He kicked open the front door without breaking stride, sending wood and splinters flying in every direction from the force of the impact, and took the stairs beyond it four at a time with his rifle held at the ready. His chosen perch was a sparsely decorated bachelor pad with a sole unicorn stallion occupying it, cowering in the far corner as he held tightly to a framed photo of somebody, a family member maybe, and he stared at the Spartan with eyes as wide as saucers.

Jones looked at him and said, 'Out.'

The pony could only nod and scampered out of the room just as fast as his legs would carry him, and Jones took a moment to thank the xenolinguists who had performed nothing short of a miracle by crafting an update for the translation software carried by every UNSC member in just a few days, and based on nothing more than the logs of SPARTAN-A196 as she spoke and interacted with the Equestrians. That being said, it was still in the early stages and patches would continually come in as they studied the Equestrian's strangely melodic and singsong speech, but it seemed to be working well enough right now.

Either that or the unicorn was so deathly afraid of Jones that any utterance from him, even a friendly hello, was liable to send him running for the hills. Moving away from the distraction, Jones opened the room's window just enough to push the barrel of his DMR through without attracting the attention of anyone on the ground, all of them still focusing on one another, and rested the crosshairs of his scope on the apparent leader of the Innies, a portly woman dressed in what passed for a standard uniform amongst the rebels. Sort of.

There was no set dress code for the human rebels so much as a theme, that being one of flaunting independence and disrespecting authority. They would wear uniforms phased out by the UNSC but rip off collar and cuffs and have one too many buttons undone, or tear off the sleeves to reveal toned arms that might bear insulting tattoos aimed at the UNSC and the UEG, anything to tell the world they were free spirits and took orders from nobody.

The women Jones had in his scope was wearing old and faded combat trousers covered in patches from where she or someone close to her had sewn them back together when they split, and had an old field jacket draped over her shoulders that, judging by a half torn patch on the shoulder, was once the property of an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper. Jones could only imagine the act of leaving the shoulder patch hanging by a thread was to signal she was once a Helljumper but had since rebelled and joined their cause.

 _If only it were true_ , Jones thought as he watched her try and regain some control of the situation. Any ODST worth their weight was calm and collected in most situations, even crowd control, given that to simply join the prestigious all volunteer outfit required two years in the Marines and two years working for NAVSPECWAR, and _then_ make it through ODST basic training which was second only to the various Spartan programs in brutality. The woman had either taken the jacket from a slain ODST during the aftermath of a bombing or picked it up cheap in the Outer Colonies, likely on Venezia, and weaved some fantastical tale about how she really got it.

' _In position, Joe_ ,' Doug radioed over SQUADCOM, snapping the Spartan from his thoughts.

'Acknowledged,' Jones said. 'Erin?'

' _Sixty seconds,'_ she said. ' _I'm assuming we're splitting them up then hunting them down?'_

'You assume right,' Jones said. 'We need to keep them from opening fire on the crowd as much as possible. Doug and I will engage the Innies on the stage, incapacitating as many as possible, and once the survivors assume defensive positions behind the stage you'll open up, whereupon I'll send Doug on a flanking mission to disorientate them further whilst we continue putting down suppressive fire.

'If we don't incapacitate them there, they _should_ make a break for the only avenue that doesn't have gunfire coming from it. We follow and split up as necessary, taking down Innies and Birdies when we see them. Assuming they don't surrender, either.

'Once the town's secure, I'll get on the line with Thunder Child to see what our next move is.'

' _Sounds solid, Joe_ ,' Doug said.

' _Yeah,_ ' Erin said. A pause, then, ' _Okay, in position, Joe. Let's get this fucking show on the road.'_

'Acknowledged,' Jones said. 'On my mark, Doug. Mark!'

The two Spartans opened fire simultaneously, their rifles belching fire and lead that crossed the short distance in no time flat. Jones eliminated the ODST wannabe with a well place headshot that sent her tumbling midway through some spiel about the Equestrians returning home as Doug sent two other Innies to their deaths with a five-round burst, and unleashed a longer flurry of automatic gunfire that downed another three, making for six dead Insurrectionists out of twenty-four. They recoiled in shock from the assault and scrambled to respond, scanning the buildings for muzzle flashes as the Equestrians scattered in the face of a full blown firefight.

Jones obliged by revealing his location with another shot, killing the next in command who was shouting orders at the humans and griffins alike, and again with the next person along. Not one to be outdone, Doug sprayed the rest of his magazine at the assembled group and knocked another four out, dead or dying. The remaining fourteen dove away from the Spartans behind the far edge of the stage, some falling flat on their asses when they tripped over their fallen, and all levelled their guns at the two houses.

Fourteen assault rifles opened up as one, each an old MA5B, and sent a full magazine downrange in less than four seconds. Nearly a thousand rounds peppered the facade of the buildings Jones and Doug were in but only a smattering came close, and fewer still actually collided with their shields to make them glow. Jones responded by placing a single round right between the eyes of the first human to poke their back head up after reloading, and Doug poured an entire magazine into the rough location of where the others were.

Contrary to what the movies had people believe, concealment did _not_ equal cover or protection from gunfire, especially when it was a full sized rifle round going up against pinewood and crates with thin metal walls, and Erin reported seeing three more Innies going down and not getting back up, then she responded with glee when Jones gave her permission to open fire.

'Doug, punch out to the corner and resume fire,' Jones said as the Innies and Birdies found themselves under attack from two different locations, one of which had no concealment with which to hide their movements.

But before the Spartan could move the remaining humans led a charge into the nearest street, firing their rifles all the while in an attempt to suppress Falcon long enough to make it intact. Jones shied away on reflex, taken aback by the brazenness of the Innies, and only managed to drop three more when he recovered but made up for it by bagging half a dozen griffins as they followed suit, making for roughly a full quarter of the invasion force lying dead or dying in the square.

Those few who were still alive had their wounds tended to and their arms bound behind them with zip ties, and the dead were frisked for any extra ammunition or supplies that might be of use to the Spartans during the next stage of their plan. As he looked at the wounded lying on the ground Jones debated on whether he should task Doug to stay and watch over them, in case they tried to make a break for it and cause havoc further on down the line, but withdrew that thought when five or six separate instances of gunfire erupted across town. He needed his whole team to combat it.

Besides, the injured were sporting holes in their guts and legs, and their hands were bound by inch thick ties constructed from a polymer designed to withstand attacks by everything short of specialised knives carried only by Spartans and military police units. They'd be safe enough. Hopefully.

'All right,' Jones said, waving his team closer. 'Judging by the gunfire there's maybe six or so marauding parties out having fun, maybe more if the griffins are participating, and judging by the amount of dead here we've got maybe seventy-five left to go. On the plus side, they're mostly Birdies so firefights probably won't be a common occurrence. On the down side, they're probably radioing for reinforcements as we speak. Or, an extraction so they can live and fight another day. Either way we're likely gonna get surrounded.'

'Yeah, but we're paratroopers, Joe,' Erin said, no doubt with a toothy grin. 'We're supposed to be surrounded.'

Jones flashed her an unseen smile back and hefted his DMR.

'Okay, Falcon. Let's go.'

 **Spartan Jones** _ **,**_ **unnamed Equestrian town. 0117 Hours, May 02, 2553 (Military Calendar/Local Time**

The smoke in this part of town wasn't as bad as it was in other places, just the occasional patch of the grey cloud drifting across the street, and Jones was happy to note the fires causing them were largely contained with a few courageous Equestrians were doing their best to douse them before something else went wrong. They stopped and stared though when he walked past, an imposing figure dressed in half a ton of metal appearing from the opaque cloud filling the streets, and some even whooped and cheered when they caught sight of him.

What little they knew of Spartans came directly from what the Equestrian newspapers had published about SPARTAN-A196's escapades in their country and beyond, including but not limited to extracting Twilight Sparkle from deep within the Griffin Kingdom _and_ nuking an orbiting Innie destroyer all by herself. As far as the ponies in this land knew, Spartans were superheroes coming to rescue them. So, some pretty big shoes to fill.

Jones waved back at those who cheered him and stopped to speak with others on occasion, asking after the location of the griffins and the Innies, thanking them kindly when they pointed him onwards and advising they extinguish the fires quickly before heading back inside until it was safe to emerge. The gunfire that had acted as a rough waypoint for the enemy's location had fallen silent around fifteen minutes ago, a worrying development as only Erin had reported making contact with a group of hostiles, only one of whom carried a firearm.

The silence was worrying because it meant the Innies were up to something and it was never good when the enemy began plotting things. Maybe they were discussing the possibility of surrendering to the three Spartans, or maybe they were devising a way to ambush them all and cut Fireteam Falcon down for good so they could be lauded as heroes when they returned to the fold. The latter of those two was not exactly a welcoming thought to Jones and he did his best to push it from his mind, slowing as he approached the corner of the street.

The road he was on was mainly residential in nature with one and two storey houses lining the road with little gardens, barren due to the approach of winter, and the one it led onto was a main road that cut through the town. Viewed from above, the street plan looked like a spider's web with the main government building sat right in the middle of town which made navigation easy to accomplish, but the long legs that stretched from the centre were a sniper's dream given their long and uninterrupted sightlines, and the fact that anyone wanting to move about town was bound to cross one at some point.

A single sniper per leg, maybe two for redundancy's sake, and crossing the road could become very dangerous for just about everybody, trained professionals included, assuming the occupiers had that many snipers to start with which was something Jones doubted. They had just five combat effectives left by this point who could hold and fire a gun as long and as unwieldy as an SRS99, plus around sixty-five griffins who were more at home with swords and spears, so the chances were low there was a sniper on overwatch somewhere, and lower still they were watching this street in particular. Regardless, Jones still crossed it quickly after giving the buildings a cursory glance for anything amiss.

Then he ran into the enemy.

He got halfway down the street when a half dozen ponies ran across the mouth of the next once, screaming with fear, and he hurried towards them with his rifle up and ready. As he did, twenty or so griffins appeared with their weapons raised and chased after the ponies, oblivious to the seven foot tall supersoldier tracking them with his weapon. They didn't remain oblivious when he began firing, the crack of his DMR deafening in the relative silence, and reversed course once three of their number were dead with another two wounded from a through and through.

Jones emptied his magazine and dropped the total number of hostiles to six and the griffins, thinking the Spartan was vulnerable as he reloaded, charged him with their swords at the ready. Unfortunately, Jones still had his pistol which he drew with lightning fast speed and fired off six shots, scoring a headshot apiece to shower himself and the ground with copious amounts of blood and bone and brain matter. This was the main downside to using a semi-armour piercing, high explosive round on soft targets like this. It always left a mess.

Holstering the pistol and reloading his DMR, Jones stepped over the six now headless griffins, and the other intact bodies, to resume his search.

 **Spartan Jones** _ **,**_ **unnamed Equestrian town. 0142 Hours, May 02, 2553 (Military Calendar/Local Time**

Chips of stone flew into the air as an errant bullet hit the ground a few feet from Jones and ricocheted to parts unknown but the Spartan paid it no mind, resting the crosshairs of his scope on the Innie that was responsible for the bullet and put the man down amid a spurt of blood, reducing the total number of Innie fighters to three. He had stumbled across them just a few minutes ago as they attempted to reorganise their remaining griffin troops into a defensive posture around their headquarters, setting up portable turrets and barricades around a three storey house across the street from where the explosion had taken place.

Rubble and debris littered the street and it was this the griffins were trying to use for cover as they advanced on the Spartan, sprinting from place to place as the Innies tried to provide cover fire from their fortifications. At first they used a turret but a fragmentation grenade from Jones had seen to both it and its operator, dropping the number of Innies to four, and forced them to once more rely on their MA5B assault rifles but, as had just been demonstrated, they were poor substitutes for a dedicated marksman platform like the M392 Jones used.

He showed off its abilities once more by clipping one of the Innies in the shoulder and sent them spinning to the floor and out of sight, sparing them a mortal blow, and the other two rebels retreated inside their headquarters to leave the griffins the task of trying to subdue the Spartan. Though they numbered more than thirty, they didn't seem to rate their chances against the lonesome Jones after he had lain waste to ten of their group within thirty seconds of arriving.

They paused when the lack of covering fire became apparent, flicking between the Innie HQ and the defiladed supersoldier, weighing up their options. Continue pressing this attack and lose even more troops whilst retaining their pride, or swallow it and admit defeat by running for cover and protection with the very allies that had just abandoned them.

Jones allowed the senior griffin make his decision, watching him intently through his scope, then shot him in the head when he ordered the attack continue regardless of how many they lost. Apparently losing face was worse than losing lives against a soldier that had so far shown no sign of flagging.

'Now,' the Spartan said into SQUADCOM.

Two green lights winked back at him as Doug and Erin, who had used the halt to get into better firing positions, dropped two primed fragmentation grenades apiece into the griffins' midst that detonated to turn them all into bloodied ribbons in the blink of an eye. One moment there was a platoon's worth of Birdies advancing down the street, the next there was nothing but chunks of smouldering meat and the occasional fragment of armour raining down from above.

Jones stepped into view to admire the destruction and made a show of wafting the air before him as though gagging on the scent of burnt flesh and explosives, slowly approaching the Insurrection base of operations.

'Four might have been a bit much,' he said, stepping between the blast marks and the fleshy chunks. 'This is going to make battlefield sanitation that bit harder, you know?'

'Like they'll put three Spartans on BS duty,' Erin said, joining her team leader. 'As soon as we're done here, they'll whisk us off to the next hotspot that needs working over, or looking over.'

'You hope,' Doug said before raising his rifle at the house. 'Two contacts, unarmed.'

Jones and Erin span and saw the last two Innies coming out of the house with their hands up, one of them holding a white flag of surrender, and they moved to quickly take hold of them both and wrap more of the zip ties around their hands. One of them, Jones assumed her to be the leader of the two, just looked at him with a smug smile rather than a cowed expression of defeat.

'What?' he said.

'Nothing,' the Innie said, chuckling slightly. 'Just... thinking a happy thought, Spartan. A very happy thought.'

That was not a good thing to hear from a prisoner who had just surrendered herself and it set alarms off in the Spartans head, loud enough that he was on SATCOM with Thunder Child before Doug and Erin were frog marching their POWs into the centre of town.

'Falcon One to Thunder Child,' Jones said once authentication was done. 'I think we'll take those reinforcements now.'


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

 **Spartan Jones** _ **,**_ **unnamed Equestrian town. 0615 Hours, May 02, 2553 (Military Calendar/Local Time)**

Help came in the form of a Marine company riding six Pelicans, each of the dropships carrying a Warthog force application vehicle equipped with the venerable M41 LAAG, and they were quick to begin the process of fortifying the town as best they could against attack with overwatch positions arranged along the likely avenues of approach but the size of the town was too large for even a full company of Marines to properly secure, meaning each squad was given responsibility for a wide swatch of perimeter to cover.

Further adding to their woes was the need to round up, stabilise and then guard all the Insurrectionists not killed by Falcon, amounting to almost twenty people, which took two fireteams off the frontlines that could otherwise be used to keep watch, and _then_ they needed to tend to the wounded on the Equestrian side by collecting them up and bringing them to a moderately sized hospital in town that was running critically low on vital medical supplies. Evidently, evacuating Equestria's eastern seaboard had caused some logistical issues.

Jones wondered if other towns in Equestria had gotten hit like this by the pull out, or if some had found creative workarounds to their problems to mitigate or even eliminate the issue entirely. This town certainly hadn't and by all accounts it was lucky to have avoided being hit by an outbreak of some kind as the weather turned against them. Just one person with a bad infection could bring an entire village down around them if there wasn't enough medicine to go around.

Handling dead bodies without adequate protection wouldn't help matters any, though the ponies in this little burg could take some comfort in knowing they didn't have to deal with the mass of decaying corpses littering the ruin that was once Ponyville. Those had been lying out in the open for the best part of a month since an Innie air attack back in April, decomposing despite the coolness of the winter. Woe betide whatever unit got that grisly detail.

Shuddering at the thought, Jones was thankful to have his attention diverted elsewhere by the Marine's CO calling out to him from across the square both were stood in, turning to see Captain Romero striding towards him with the loping gait indicative of a person who had recently spent significant time in a low gravity environment, usually aboard a ship or space station, and flanked by his three platoon commanders.

'Sir,' Jones said once Romero reached him.

'Spartan,' Romero said, eying him up and down. 'Where's the rest of your team?'

'Sacked out,' Jones said, nodding his head towards a nearby building playing host to Doug and Erin. 'They should be back with us by 0800 hours.'

'I didn't think Spartans needed sleep,' Romero said.

'Some do,' Jones said. 'The Fours, at least.'

Romero grunted in agreement at that before saying, 'So what makes you think the Innies are coming here? Most reports have them falling back to Baltimare in their masses when they aren't heading straight to the Griffin Kingdom, and there's nothing of any major importance here for them to consider wasting lives over.'

'Because when we were taking prisoners, one of them had this smile on her face,' Jones said. 'Like she'd just radioed in some key piece of intelligence that her bosses were waiting to hear and they were mobilising their forces to respond to it.'

'And what key intelligence might that be?' Romero said. 'That they've lost another town to the UNSC?'

Jones shook his head. 'I think she was telling them a team of Spartans were here.'

A puzzled look appeared on Romero's face when he heard that, as did his platoon commanders. Innies usually looked upon Spartans much like the Covenant did, as demons and monsters that couldn't be stopped except with massed fire from their heaviest weapons, so radioing through a team of them had appeared wasn't typically something that drew forth happy smiles from prisoners of war, not unless they were playing their part in some larger operation and were really bad at hiding their emotions. Just what that operation might be had gnawed away at Jones ever since he'd seen the smile and, despite his fatigue, he believed he had come up with a reasonable explanation.

For as long as the Insurrectionists had fought against Spartans, chief amongst their goals was the acquisition of one of them, dead or alive, to learn what they could about both their augmentations and equipment so they could try and reverse engineer it for their own purposes. As far as Jones knew the Innies had never successfully captured a Spartan from any class, or held one long enough to begin their examinations, but with the announcement of the new generation they probably felt the need to do so successfully was even more pressing than ever though, conversely, now they had even more opportunities to capture a Spartan given the UNSC was fielding close to 150 of them currently, a hundred of which were in Equestria.

Jones was certain the Innies had plans in place for when an opportunity presented itself of a Spartan or a group of them finding themselves in a vulnerable position, isolated and alone from the bulk of the UNSC and open to being swarmed and overwhelmed into submission or death, so they could pick apart whatever they managed to capture. It was probably a standing order issued by whatever leaders the Innies had across all their territory, which meant the rebels here in Equestria had to have plans in place for capturing a Spartan, and this was probably why the POW had smiled at him when she surrendered.

Fireteam Falcon was operating mostly alone, the next nearest friendly force being twenty to thirty miles away at best, and the incoming nor'easter was going to restrict the UNSC's ability to send reinforcements should Jones and his team need them. Already dark clouds were gathering on the wayward horizon, threatening snow, and wind was whipping past the Marines as they did their work to add a keen edge to the biting chill present in the air. This was probably the best chance the Innies would get to capture a Spartan, maybe their only one for the foreseeable future.

He explained all this to Romero as best he could with the Marine captain nodding his head solemnly in agreement. It was sound logic and coming from a Spartan, it couldn't be dismissed out of hand considering the rigorous screening process and training they underwent, with Romero eventually saying, 'It's a plausible theory, Spartan. I'd do everything I could to get my hands on the tech behind your suit and augments, give my people the same advantage, but they're all preoccupied with falling back to the Griffin Kingdom. I can only imagine they'd send nothing short of a battalion's worth of troops against three Spartans, but that's going to be difficult to do if most of their Pelicans are assigned to EVAC flights.

'Even if they do decide to try it, they've got to gather up enough troops to make the fight even, fly over here, and then engage the three of you in combat before flying back again to join everyone else in retreating before that nor'easter grounds all their birds. Our guys would be hard pressed to do that and we're much better organised than them.'

'How long might that take?' Jones asked. 'If they did decide to come after us?'

'A few hours, maybe,' Romero said with a shrug. 'Once their leaders have finished arguing about whether the risk is worth it or not, so arguably they could be arriving any minute now, actually.'

'A cheery thought,' Jones said darkly.

Romero nodded. 'But only if they think the whole endeavour is worth it. I mean, there are going to be plenty of other times for them to try and nail a Spartan, both here on Faustia and elsewhere in the galaxy, so they could look at the weather front rolling in and decide against it.'

'You know what they say about hoping for the best...'

'I do know,' Romero said. 'Which is why my Marines are gearing up for an attack. Once the rest of your team is back up, have them come see me and we can work out where to put you all.'

'Yes, sir,' Jones said.

 **Spartan Jones** _ **,**_ **unnamed Equestrian town. 2209 Hours, May 02, 2553 (Military Calendar/Local Time)**

The Insurrectionists never came.

Captain Romero's Marines maintained their posts throughout the day, keeping their wary eyes on the horizon for any sign of unfriendly Pelicans coming to offload a battalion's worth of troops, right up until the nor'easter hit and brought with it howling winds and heavy snow, cutting their visibility to almost nothing. When the sun went down they lost all semblance of vision entirely and the Marines retreated inside, huddling together for warmth as the storm raged outside, periodically contacting one another over their radios to make everyone was still alive and well.

Jones did the same with Falcon on occasion, currently split across the three platoons as force multipliers should the need arise, but for the most part he just sat back and listened to the howling of the wind and the shaking of the building as he and everyone else waited for the storm to pass. With him were around a dozen Marines, including Romero, most of whom were clumped together beneath thick blankets the locals had kindly donated as they tried to sleep and keep warm. The only Marine not yet asleep, barring the captain, was just as lively as the others as he stared, mesmerised, into the dancing flames of a fire doing its best to warm the room.

Romero himself was engrossed in whatever he had open on his pad and Jones, despite himself, was transfixed on a darkened and frost covered window set directly across from him that showed flurries of snow swirling past in the frigid air. UNSC meteorologists said the storm should abate sometime tomorrow morning so until then, anything flying was grounded and overland travel was restricted to the direst of emergencies. So, essentially, the Marines in this town were cut off from everyone else, but so were the Innies as well. Their Pelicans and pilots weren't any better than the UNSC's, often they were worse, so their advancements were just as stationary.

'What were you before?' Romero asked, breaking the silence without warning.

'Before what?' Jones said, tilting his head towards the officer without taking his eyes off the window. Like the Marine and the fire, he was slightly captivated by the falling snow. 'Being a Spartan?'

'Yeah,' Romero said.

'Army,' Jones said. '82nd Airborne Division, 325th Regiment. Four years.'

'Rank?'

'Corporal, though after the Battle of Earth there were talks of bumping me up to sergeant to fill combat losses and recognise my leadership capabilities.'

'But then the Spartan program intervened,' Romero said. 'And now you're a fireteam leader who, according to this briefing packet, has the same authority as a ground forces captain. We both hold the same rank.'

Jones turned his head a little more to look at the Marine at that and said, 'Yeah. A fourteen rank promotion in less than six months. Never seen such a meteoric rise up the ladder before, have you?'

'It's unusual,' Romero said, nodding his head slightly in agreement. 'Don't quite know how it would work in the field if myself and my platoon commanders were incapacitated right now. Command authority would, technically, default to you and your team, none of whom have led anything bigger than an army squad, I'm guessing.'

'Yeah,' Jones said. 'We'd be a little out of our depth if that came to pass. I think it's more to give Spartans greater autonomy during operations on the ground than anything else. After all, any newly minted ensign or second lieutenant could have bossed the Master Chief around if they wanted and he'd _have_ to obey any and all orders they gave, provided they weren't illegal or conflicted with previous ones.'

'Now _that_ is a scary thought,' Romero said.

'Oh, you want scary?' Jones said before nodding to the tablet. 'Bring up the file on Spartan Sarah Palmer, our top officer for the whole program barring Jun and Musa, and see what it says about her.'

Romero glanced at the Spartan for a brief moment then did as directed, swiping and tapping his way through the dossier HIGHCOM had provided on working alongside the new generation of supersoldiers until he arrived at the personnel files on the key individuals associated with the program, particularly that of one Sarah Palmer who was amongst the first class of Spartan-IVs, and had since been given the position of Commander amongst them, which was the equivalent of a colonel in the Army and the Marines. What made this particularly jarring, even more so than Jones' own fourteen rank jump, was that Palmer had spent the majority of her career in the ODSTs as a lance corporal despite, according to the dossier, her innate leadership talents and combat prowess.

In fact, the file went out of its way to avoid referencing what Palmer's rank had once been, or how long she'd held it, which anyone with half a brain was going to pick up on in just a few seconds. A quick check of her service record would then reveal she spent around six years as a lance corporal which, in peacetime, might not have been that bad considering promotions beyond that rank were competitive, but the Human-Covenant War had caused massive amounts of casualties, even in elite formations like the Helljumpers. Opportunities for advancement would have been springing up left, right and centre, especially for someone identified as having great leadership and combat potential like Palmer supposedly was.

Technically, she _was_ a corporal when Jun recruited her but it was a recent promotion, given in the aftermath of her most recent mission, which lessened the absolutely staggering jump in ranks Palmer had undertaken from seventeen to sixteen but still did nothing to diminish the fact that for six years, her highest level of responsibility was leading a fireteam of three or four when a corporal was otherwise unavailable, and now held command authority over humanity's newest generation of augmented supersoldiers that now served as the shield behind which the UNSC would start to rebuild.

Jones watched Romero's face for the exact moment he reached the same conclusion then said, 'Yeah, that was my reaction as well.'

'She was a lance corporal for six years,' Romero said. 'And now she's leading you guys?'

'Pretty much,' Jones said with as shrug. 'There was plenty of grumbling amongst some of the candidates in my class of Spartans, especially from recruits that had once been officers themselves, but ultimately we kept silent on the matter.'

'I can't imagine why you would,' Romero said. 'She was a lance corporal, for crying out loud. If someone told me I had to take orders from one, there'd be something more than grumbling coming out of my mouth.'

'We didn't say anything because the project leaders, both veterans of the previous program, appointed her to the position,' Jones said. 'The whole thing was organised up by a Spartan-II washout and he got a Spartan-III survivor to help screen and recruit the candidates. If anyone knew what they're doing when it comes to selecting Spartan candidates for leadership, it'd be them.'

Romero gave Jones a flat look and said, 'So because they're Spartans, they're incapable of making mistakes? Tell me, what was the reason you called for backup?'

Jones ducked his head in agreement at that, conceding the point, adding, 'I guess so.'

'Yeah,' Romero said. 'Don't be afraid to question the motives of your superiors, regardless of their credentials. I encourage my Marines to speak up if they have a problem with an order I'm giving. Could be I'm not thinking clearly enough to be issuing the orders. Helps keep me grounded.'

'I'll try to remember that,' Jones said.

'Be sure that you do, because stuff like this is what gets people hurt, or killed.'


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

 **Spartan Jones** _ **,**_ **unnamed Equestrian town. 0737 Hours, May 03, 2553 (Military Calendar/Local Time)**

The storm died out shortly before dawn broke, the howling winds abating to almost nothing as the first few hints of light appeared on the wayward horizon, and by the time the sun was up and the Marines were emerging from their shelters the clouds overhead seemed to have melted away to nothing, revealing a clear blue sky. Spartan Jones gave it a quick glance as he followed Captain Romero outside, finding the snow was halfway up his shins, then zeroed in on the rest of his team as they lingered off to one side.

They nodded curtly when they caught sight of him and Jones strode over, kicking up plumes of snow as he did, and together they joined the back of a queue leading into what was passing for the mess hall amongst the Marines. In reality it was little more than two privates standing beside a pot of boiling water, into which people threw their chosen MRE to heat it up ahead of consuming the bland meals, plus several urns off to one side that allowed them to grab mugs of coffee and trays of confectionaries that the Equestrians had kindly donated.

Jones and the rest of Falcon quickly ducked under the low doorframe when their time came, earning a plethora of stares from the Marines who had yet to grow accustomed to seeing Spartans up close before, or even doing something as routine as engaging in breakfast, and exited just as swiftly to perch themselves on the same stage that, only thirty hours ago, they had attacked in their effort to free the town from Insurrectionist control. Most of the blood and bullet holes were covered by a deep layer of snow, but looking around Jones could see the marks from where stray Innie rounds, and their deliberate assaults on his and Doug's positions, had marred the otherwise pristine façade of the local buildings.

'Wonder where we'll get sent next,' Jones said as he reached up and removed his helmet, placing it next to his mug and mess tin on a crate Erin had appropriated from somewhere and doing his best to ignore the sudden, biting chill of the frigid winter air.

'Baltimare, probably,' Doug said, shovelling a spoonful of beans into his mouth. 'Either as recon ahead of the actual fight, or to cause disruption behind enemy lines when the Marines come in. That's what paratroopers are for.'

'Or they'll send us into griffin territory,' Erin suggested. 'You know, recon them whilst all eyes are on Equestria.'

Jones cast his mind's eye forwards to that possibility, of being dropped deep behind enemy lines with minimal command oversight as his team dodged around roving bands of Innies and Birdies, alternating between watching and engaging them, or just operating in a pathfinder role. Dropping in ahead of an invasion force, marking suitable landing zones or enemy fortifications not visible to reconnaissance flights, was one of the earliest roles paratroopers had when they first formed during the Second World War several centuries ago, and remained a vital one even today.

He and his team, plus elements of their parent company back before their inclusion into the Spartan-IV program, had often parachuted into enemy territory ahead of an attack by the rest of the 82nd to get the lay of the land and give their fellow soldiers the ability to adjust their battle plan accordingly so as to maximise enemy casualties whilst minimising their own. It was also one of the qualities Jun had sought out from the three of them when he extended his offer all those months ago, on top of the usual platitudes of their fighting skill and teamwork.

The prospect seemed alluring to Jones, if only to get back at the Innies for all the misery they had caused to the people of Equestria, and further out into the galaxy as they turned their guns on the UNSC despite fighting alongside one another in the waning months of the Human-Covenant War. He briefly had visions of leading his team on deep reconnaissance operations on planets loyal to the Insurrectionist cause like Venezia, a major trading hub of black market arms and, rarely, old Covenant warships that Jackals managed to acquire, and a smile briefly flashed onto his face as images of dead and dying Innies filled his thoughts.

'Something funny?' Erin asked, catching a glimpse of the smirk.

'Just thinking on stuff,' Jones said. 'Like us heading to Venezia.'

A more pronounced, and decidedly more devious, grin appeared on Erin's face as she imagined it as well. There was no love for the Insurrection amongst any member of Fireteam Falcon and they all knew that in the years to come, the human rebels were going to be the ones they'd be fighting against the most, plus the occasional remnant of the Covenant still sticking to their beliefs. ONI briefs suggested a number of them were already cropping up, each claiming to be a true continuation of the fractured alien hegemony, but were too scattered and lacked proper base facilities to actually pose any real threat.

Given enough time, they'd collapse in on themselves as combat losses mounted or members deserted, and if they refused to fade away then the Navy was always willing to help them along with a few well-placed MAC rounds whilst ground troops overran their planetary bases.

But that wouldn't be for some time yet, years even, so Jones returned his thoughts to the immediate future of the UNSC's operations in Equestria, and across the ocean in the Griffin Kingdom. The first objective for the UNSC was to clear Equestria of any Insurrectionist presence to free the population of colourful looking ponies, then gather their forces and ready them for phase two, the invasion of the Griffin Kingdom itself.

Landing zones for the battlegroup's various frigates and sole Phoenix-class carrier were already being worked out by the Marines overseeing the attack, based off initial planetary scan data by the prowler _Shadow Boxer_ and their own subsequent flybys with recon craft, any number of which ground teams would have to go in and assess in person and then defend once the ships came down to land. With a beachhead secure, it would then fall to the troops to expand their hold and move to subdue the local population.

That was a tall order given there were, at best, thirty or so thousand troops in the whole battlegroup to try and control a population well into the tens of millions, a lot of whom were slightly more aggressive than their Equestrian counterparts, and had sharp claws to back that up. Perhaps peace treaties could be brokered between elements of the griffin people, either to ensure their non-action in the fighting or to gain their aid in combating the diehards who clung to their Insurrectionist allies.

If not, orbital bombardment would work just as well at wiping out troublesome pockets of resistance.

Jones tried not to think about the fact just such an attack had left Ponyville the bombed out ruin it was today, filled with hundreds of rotting corpses, and figured that at least the Marines would give the griffins a chance to stand down before pulling out to let their Navy brethren rain down hellfire from above, which was more than what Ponyville got.

He and his team then dropped into idle chatter about their speculations of what the fight ahead might be bring as they chowed down in their food and drank down the rapidly cooling coffee, watching as some of the younger colts and fillies came out of their homes to dash around in the snow, laughing and giggling as they kicked plumes of the fallen ice at one another or threw snowballs, ducking between some of the Marines as they milled about, hot drinks in their hands. Some even joined in, passing their rifle to a buddy and grabbing a handful of snow that they threw, often with greater accuracy than the ponies, at a random target.

Standing orders for all UNSC personnel interacting with the Equestrians was to conduct hearts and minds operations as much as possible, to allay whatever lingering fears they might have towards humans after living for so long under Innie occupation. The wording of the orders was just vague enough that how a person did it was down to their own discretion, or that of their superior. Captain Romero seemed to have no issue with his Marines engaging in a snowball fight, glancing over at a trio of his troops that had discarded their rifles and were now hastily constructing some kind of barricade as a much larger group of ponies pelted them with snow.

He looked away just as quickly as he had turned to watch them as he headed towards the three Spartans, TACPAD in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other.

'Rested and ready, Falcon?' he said upon reaching them.

'Yes, sir,' Jones said with a nod. 'We're one-hundred percent again, should the Innies try anything stupid.'

'Everything they do that isn't surrender is stupid,' Romero said. 'But good to hear, because you're being redeployed.'

'Where to?' Jones asked as, either side of him, Doug and Erin reached for their helmets upon hearing the captain's words.

'Baltimare,' Romero said, holding out the TACPAD.

It contained deployment orders for Falcon that said they were to make their way, at best speed, to one of the forward observation posts being established all along the outskirts of the major port city ahead of actual combat operations, and await further briefings by the higher ups.

'I guess the recon phase is over with,' Jones noted, knowing the UNSC wouldn't be moving troops that far forward if the vast majority of Innie forces hadn't retreated from the towns they had recently been presiding over.

'Intelligence suggests the main bulk of their troops lit out from the towns and villages during the start of the nor'easter,' Romero said. 'When our satellites were blind to what was going on down on the ground. Hard to believe they attempted it during that kind of weather.'

'Desperate times, sir,' Jones said. He drained the last of his coffee then grabbed his helmet, slipping it onto place atop his head and sealing the system once again. As he did, the HUD came alive as an exact copy of the deployment orders Romero had just shown him faded into view before his eyes, and Jones marked it as read and acknowledged. It flashed once then disappeared.

'Are there any birds coming in?' he asked the captain, who nodded in affirmation.

'There's a Pelican supply flight supposed to be coming within the hour,' Romero said. 'Food and medicine for the Equestrians, extra bodies for us in case the Innies come back.'

'Good enough,' Jones said as he turned to his team. 'Doug, get the Mongooses ready for loading. Erin, stock up on anything we're low on. Food, fuel, ammo, whatever. There might be slim pickings at the meeting point.'

They both nodded and headed off in different directions, leaving Jones alone with Captain Romero in the middle of the square. He quickly brought up a map of Equestria on his HUD and roughed out a route between the town he was in and the observation post they wanted him at, just in case the Pelicans couldn't or wouldn't take him their way, grimacing at seeing the distance was a few hundred miles and through terrain covered by a thick blanket of snow. The orders hadn't specified a time for Falcon to be on location by, but it was never a good idea to take too long.

'Do you expect they'll pull your company in for the assault on Baltimare?' Jones asked once he'd closed the map down.

'Nope,' Romero said. 'The extra troops they're bringing in are Seabees, so my Marines are going to be their security detail as they rebuild the town. For the time being, this is my new home.'

He waved up at the buildings surrounding them, bullet holes and all, then let his arms drop after a moment, frustration in his tone. The captain must have wanted to take the fight to the Innies just as much as Jones did, or simply resented the fact he was going to be sitting idle on the side during the Battle of Baltimare rather than being in the thick of it.

'Maybe they'll send you into the Griffin Kingdom instead,' Jones offered, to which the Marine grunted.

'Maybe,' Romero said, shrugging noncommittally. Then he adjusted his tone and straightened up, holding a hand out for the Spartan to shake. 'Well, from one fellow O3 to another, I wish you luck in the upcoming battle.'

Jones paused then shook the hand, gingerly, and said, 'And to you, captain.'

 **Spartan Jones** _ **,**_ **UNSC forward operating base Casper. 1358 Hours, May 03, 2553 (Military Calendar/Local Time)**

Their ride ended up being a Falcon gunship that was part of the relief flight's escort, necessitating the abandoning of the Mongooses, and it dropped them ten miles from their rendezvous point thanks to a no-fly zone the UNSC had imposed around Baltimare, restricting any aircraft from coming within fifteen miles of the city, meaning they had to walk the rest of the way to the coordinates command had given them.

For a regular human it would have been an arduous trek with knee high banks of snow serving only to slow their progress and numb their feet, which a persistent breeze only added to, but their MJOLNIR armour made sloughing through the snow no harder than casually strolling through a park, and the suit itself protected the three members of Falcon from the biting chill of the winter air. Jones' only gripe had been the fact that their olive drab colouration, intended for operations in woodland areas, now made them stick out like a sore thumb against the brilliant white backdrop that was currently Equestria's countryside.

But when he reached the meeting point he saw that his team wasn't the only one to be suffering the same fate. Around twenty-two other Spartan-IVs had gotten the same deployment orders as them, pulled from their previous postings, and were dressed in shades of grey, green and brown, all colours at home with operations in a more temperate climate than artic warfare that they now seemed to find themselves in. More tellingly, Jones couldn't help but note that none of them seemed to be teams that specialised in covert operations. Rather, they were all frontline combatants judging by the equipment they had.

Most of them wore either the Warrior or Soldier variant of the MJOLNIR armour, barring a trio of Spartans in steel grey Helljumper suits, and carried assault and battle rifles when they didn't have shotguns and submachine guns. Only one other person beyond Jones had a DMR. He knew rather than guessed that the Spartans here were going to lead the assault in Baltimare, and for a moment he felt a swell of pride that the higher ups had thought to include Fireteam Falcon in their list of teams for this operation.

He quickly glanced at the IFF tags of his fellow Spartans and recognised maybe a handful of the names from his training group, giving them a half nod that was quietly returned before the various Spartans returned to whatever it was that had occupied their attention prior to the arrival of Falcon in their midst. A steaming urn was set up off to one side which Falcon immediately gravitated towards, making themselves a mug of coffee each in short order as they took in the facilities around them.

It was less an observation post than it was the beginnings of a regimental headquarters clustered around the back of an M312 Elephant mobile command centre, the bulky and boxlike machine currently in its lockdown state with stowed autocannon deployed, and ringed by a trio of Wolverine anti-aircraft platforms deployed in a defensive posture around the Elephant, plus four times as many Warthogs equipped with anti-personnel and anti-vehicle weapons. It sat atop a slight hill and Jones could see Baltimare on the horizon, a mass of apartment blocks and skyscrapers sitting on the edge of a large bay that was besieged by both sailing ships and loose chunks of ice that the nor'easter had brought with it.

He squinted, activating the zoom function on his HUD, and caught glimpses of waiting Insurrectionist Pelicans sitting on crude landing pads between the buildings. The streets themselves were bustling with activity as Innies and Birdies alike made ready their preparations for leaving the city and heading towards perceived safety.

A Marine colonel appeared from the back of the Elephant and cast his eye over the recent arrivals as they downed a mug of coffee, and said, 'Team leaders, this way.'

He ducked back into the Elephant's inside with Jones and five other Spartans on his tail, leading them to a holotable that showed a 3D image of Baltimare, small icons and dots representing where large concentrations of Insurrection troops were located, plus some of their more valuable equipment like vehicles and munitions. Though the Elephant was a big vehicle, the rear compartment was a cramped affair with a mass of monitors and seats, to say nothing of how it felt with six fully armoured Spartans standing inside, and they stood shoulder to shoulder out of necessity rather than some sign of solidarity with one another.

The map of Baltimare included a scale that said the city was approximately four miles to a side, making for sixteen square miles of area covered, which a regiment of Marines would be hard pressed to sweep across and root out every last remaining trace of the Insurrection in a timely fashion, but neither had the Insurrectionists brought with them enough troops to have full coverage of the location.

Because of this they were spread thin across the city, massing only at major points like their communication arrays of Pelican landing sites, plus what looked to be two passenger liners that had touched down on some of the larger open stretches in the city. Either the Innies were still loading troops onto them or they were waiting for something, a break in UNSC air cover maybe, to make a break for safety.

'As you may already know, this city is currently under hostile occupation,' the colonel began, his nametag reading Steinman. 'And it falls to us to change that.

'Starting at 0400 hours tomorrow, each of your teams will be leading a company sized element of Marines along these routes with the intention of capturing or destroying these targets of interest and vital road junctions, ready for the rest of the regiment to follow on at 0430 hours.'

The map shifted, highlighting six streets that fed into Baltimare from the outside and ran towards six different points on the map, and Jones focused on the path assigned to his team and the objective, a suspected COM station, they needed to deal with.

'Three two-Spartan teams have already been inserted into the city and have spent the past twelve hours tagging and observing areas of strategic importance and placing numerous explosives at key locations, which will be trigged when the bulk of the Insurrectionist forces move to meet your advance to stall and disorientate them.

'Once this has happened, Fireteams Comet, Spectre and Wolfhound will detach from their companies to head out and link up with these teams, and proceed at best speed to secondary targets of interest. Fireteams Avalon and Panther, plus their companies, will then move towards these two liners here with the intention of preventing their launches. The Innies don't know it yet, but our air support for this mission is slim to none. Technical difficulties have currently grounded more than half our Longsword interceptors, and the rest is required for fleet defence.

'Similarly, the bulk of our Pelicans are engaged in relief efforts across Equestria and cannot be called upon to fill the gaps. At best, the Navy says it can offer a single flight of Longswords but without a ground based refuelling centre, they'd be coming in on fumes almost and give us only a single pass with bombs and missiles before they have to return, and if those liners aren't airborne their chances of striking them fall dramatically.'

Jones grimaced at that, not liking the idea of having no air support at all, doubly so because he knew the Innies had Pelicans of their own that wouldn't be low on fuel. He hoped the Marines he'd be going into battle with had adequate handheld AA defences to try and cover this failing.

'Furthermore,' Steinman continued, the tone of his voice suggesting the new information wasn't any better than the bombshells from before. 'Weather satellites are tracking another nor'easter coming in, bigger than the previous one, set to make landfall sometime around 1900 hours tomorrow, hence the early start. We need this city under our control before them if we don't want to fight for it under blizzard conditions.'

Jones raised his hand and said, 'Any my team, sir?'

'You'll be my rapid reaction force,' Steinman said. 'I've managed to acquire a Falcon for this, the _only_ aircraft we can reliably call upon for air support, so you can bet your ass that we'll be calling upon it and your team heavily in the upcoming battle. I trust we can all count on you?'

The rest of the Spartans looked at Jones from behind their polarised helmets as though asking the same question, which was probably now weighing heavily on their minds given that if they got into trouble then it'd be his team that was coming to back them up. For a fleeting moment Jones wondered just how bad the battle had to be if a fireteam of five or so Spartans needed backup, before realising that the amount of augmented supersoldiers being thrown at this single city was almost equal to the amount of Spartan-IIs the UNSC had at the start of the Human-Covenant War.

There'd be thirty-one Spartan-IVs operating in this single operation alone, which represented around a third of all the Spartans on Faustia right now. At another time, it might have been seen as an incredible waste of resources to commit so many highly skilled and well-equipped soldiers into a single battle but, Jones thought, Spartans were no longer the vitally strategic resource they once were. They were a dime dozen, relatively speaking, and the UNSC could afford to send a higher number of them after an enemy that they might have only sent two or three Spartan-IIs against.

'Sir,' Jones said, snapping back from his thoughts. 'Fireteam Falcon won't let you down.'

'Glad to hear it,' Steinman said. 'I'll send you all a copy of the timings, intelligence estimates and topographical data, plus each team's specific objectives, and leave you to brief your teams. We'll have a final briefing with the company heads at 1800 hours tonight, and then it'll be down to you to work out force deployment with them. Dismissed.'

The six Spartans came to attention then filed out to their waiting teammates, passing on what they had learned and what their roles and objectives would be. News about the incoming nor'easter was met with dismay, but nowhere near as badly as the information that their only guaranteed form of air support was a single UH-144 Falcon. Jones' team in particular had several things to say about that fact, most of them expletives of some kind, but at least they were used to the idea of operating without solid air support of any kind in enemy held territory.

They were paratroopers, after all, and being surrounded by the enemy was where they usually found themselves.


End file.
